Ending
by Princess180
Summary: After Harry's sons and fiancée are kindapped, he, Malfoy and Hermione have to work to rescue them within twenty four hours. Also includes large amounts of angst, Malfoy's sexy dance and more sarcasm than is generally considered healthy for you.
1. Story:Harry

Disclaimer: I'm only saying this once! I'm not JKR- see, for her Malfoy is evil- not sexy. To me his just complex and sexy... sighs A/N: This is dedicated to the bestest torture victim ever- Dani! She should be very proud that she managed to put up with me for as long as she did! I promise not to bug her 'till the next purple moon. Also, I understand this is plotless... but it's long! This is... an accomplishment of one form or another, I'm sure! 

Sometimes it is the last day on earth every day. Sometimes you die a little every time you take a breath. Sometimes you are crying in a room full of people and no one looks at you. This is how you know your heart is broken.

I think.

I don't know if my heart could break any more. Honestly. When they told me she was missing, it was the end of my life. What I'm living now, it's a half-life, it's the untold story. It's funny, when you think about it this way, when they tell my story, I'll go home and marry Ginny in the end. I'm the hero. I think, in my story, the way you'll hear it years from now, Ron will live too.

I think, the way you'll hear it, we will all be safe. I hate to be so depressing; I hate to be anything anymore, though. I wish I couldn't feel this, right now. I wish this weren't so real. I wish this were just a story, happening to anyone but me.

Am I horrible for that?

For wanting Ginny to still be alive? For doing anything to save the only woman I can ever love? Am I that horrible? Is that wrong? Can you honestly tell me that being willing to kill for her happiness is wrong? For my sons' happiness?

I came home the summer after Ginny's sixth year. Hogwarts was closing, at last. Lord Voldemort was dead, but his armies were still fighting. She had just lost her brother, and I had just lost everything I'd ever known. We were desperate, you have to understand. We were in love and we were desperate. Ten months later, we had two sons. I never met them. I don't know what they look like, only their names, and that they were safe.

It was never enough.

I was eighteen; I was a father already, and not a good one. It was the worst time of my life. We were losing the war. Hermione was beyond hope. The Weasleys were dropping off, one by one. First Ron, Fred, Percy, Charlie. It had to end. I sent them away, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fleur, George. It was the least I could do. I told her to leave, take our sons. Take care of them. Let them know their father loved them. I said all the right things, but she stayed. Ginny was always a fighter.

That was six months ago. My sons are almost a year old now. I still only know their names, that they have my eyes, that they might be dead.

This will never be right again. If they are dead, if she is out of my life, it is the end of the world.

The war was winding down. We had won and they knew it. Draco Malfoy was out of hiding, had come out for our side, in the end. He had been one of our best spies- in the end, our only spy- and he had earned both my respect and my friendship. He was with Hermione, something about his presence had brought her about, and I was hearing good reports. I could go home in a few weeks, a month at the most.

It was going to be all right.

Last night, I sent and owl to the Burrow. It came back holding a baby blanket and Ginny's engagement ring. I was at the Burrow, where I hadn't returned in nearly two years, in instants. I should say, I was where the Burrow had been. All that was left was a heap of smoldering ash. I was just standing there, staring, when Malfoy got there. I wouldn't have noticed him if he hadn't put a hand on my shoulder.

"They're not dead, Harry," he said, "I know they aren't."

"And how the hell can you say you know that?" I spat, furious with him. I didn't need to be comforted. I didn't want to be comforted.

"There was a note, you prat. We have a day, exactly, stroke of midnight kind of thing," he turned me so that I was facing him. "You know we can do this."

"I know I can," Malfoy rolled his eyes at me, exasperated. I turned away from him, looking at what had once been my home. My sons' home.

"That's absurd, Potter. It was not letting me help when the Dark Lord captured Ron that got him killed and you know it damned well. If you try to do this alone, you will be murdering your sons. If it was me, I'd do everything I could to save them."

"You wouldn't understand."

"That worked three years ago, Potter, not now. You were always the holy Harry Potter and his blasted scar. Well we've all got scars now, haven't we?"

"Not the same scars," I replied, turning back to look at him. "Of course I'm going to do everything I can, that does not involve you. That does not involve Hermione. That involves me."

"And because it's about you, Hermione's involved. And I've not got anything better to do, also, killing Severus Snape is a life goal of mine."

"It's Snape?"

"I thought that would get your attention. Come home with me and I can tell you everything. There's a lot more to the note than there seems."

Two hours later, ever saving my children is looking closer too impossible than anything else. The note for me is short, if I find them before midnight tomorrow, my family will live, but only if I give Snape immunity. Which is not something I'm going to do. As far as I'm concerned, he raised the wand that killed my parents and he murdered Dumbledore, and now he's hurt my babies. The man gets no leniency.

Strategically, this is the easiest thing I've ever had to do. Find someone who wants to be found. But Severus Snape is a twisted bastard, and he wants to kill them. He wants to make my life as hard as he can. So he left a clue that only two people on this planet could understand. Luckily one of them is Malfoy, the other is Pansy Parkinson.


	2. Guilt:Draco

It ain't mine. 

Have you ever been in love? I was, twice. The first time, it was tainted and cynical and bloody, it ended fast and hard. It ended with a flick of a wand and a betrayal. The second time, it was slow and sure and sweet as sugar. The second time, I learned.

If you really love someone, you will do anything for them. And what I did was give up my past to find a future with the one person I could really care about. Six months ago, I cut all ties with my family, and killed my own father. Six months ago, I left Pansy for the last time.

Did I feel guilt? A little. But I was in love and stupid, I was also long beyond what Pansy and I had had for so much of our childhoods. She and I had always been more about what was available than what was wanted. Pansy had been what my parents wanted for me, not who I wanted for myself. But a part of me missed her, certainly, a part of me still wanted to be who I had been when I loved her.

Pansy had a brilliant mind for codes, and while we were in primary school together, she used to create them and have our tutors unravel them for her. She had one particular favorite that she developed over the years that I eventually learned, and that we would write each other in. It was mostly just the inane little things that a couple would say to each other at fifteen, 'I adore you, darling' and so on. But, over the years as the things I said got slowly more subversive, and the things she said more risqué, we took to writing each other almost solely in code. It became complex over time, both of us adding our own touches as it suited us.

In short, it became a language. And only Pansy and could speak it. After my defection, I assumed I would never see it or her again. I hardly thought about it, really. Being in Godric's Hollow for weeks at a time, I could focus on Hermione. Over the past six months, I've made more progress than anyone else has in a year and a half with her. It's the sort of thing that makes you believe in true love. And I do. That's the part that's so wrong about us, if Hermione has done one thing for me, it's that she's taught me what to believe in.

And I believe in her, which is what I think I brought to her. Potter and the rest gave up on her after a few months, but I never did believe there was no hope for her. Potter is a hero, no question, he always has been, and I've always known that, but he's always fighting for the greater good. That's why Severus Snape has his sons and his fiancée, because Harry must always be the hero. But I have never been the hero; I am the soldier, the warrior, fighting not for ideals, but for people. I fought for Hermione.

"Draco?" Hermione knocked on my door quietly, like she always does. I leave it open when I'm decent, and she knows she's welcome, but either manners or nerves keep her knocking.

"Come in, Granger," I said, turning around from my desk where I'd been working on the message-  
I'm not as fluent as I once was. Well, I am if I'm speaking it, but not writing. It's one of those funny distinctions. "I should have this in just a minute, if you'd like to hang around."

"If that's alright," she said, looking at the couch, a leather one I'd bought a few months earlier when it became clear I wouldn't be able to return to Malfoy Manor, since the bloody Ministry's decided it might give me the wrong sort of influence. Or something along those lines, Hermione understands it. I honestly can't be bothered. I like it here.

"Sit down," I said, gesturing loosely in the direction of the couch. "I've only got four words left. It's ingenious, really, the way she's constructed this."

"Oh?"

"Pansy could have rivaled you if she'd cared too," I told her, grinning.

"I somehow doubt that."

"Would I lie to you?" I asked her, raising an eyebrow. She just smiled back at me. So, her mood was established, like it always needs to be when we speak. She was a little playful, roughened for the situation and happy with me. We fell into comfortable silence. Hermione picked my book up from the bedside table, beginning to flick through it, occasionally letting out a laugh at the notes I'd made in the margins- it's a Arithmancy text and I hadn't agreed with everything set out by the author.

"Hermione?" I said, three minutes or so later, a little shrill, staring at what was set out before me in my own handwriting. "Get Potter. Tell him we're leaving. Now."

_You have until sunset tomorrow. You know what you have to do. And you know that if you come with him, if anyone comes with him. His sons will die, and there's another innocent here. Are you going to come meet your daughter, Draco? _


	3. Aftershocks:Hermione

It's the aftershocks that always get you, true of anything in life, isn't it? It's only been an hour since I found out Ginny and her sons were in danger, and it's just hit me now. Three months ago, this would have incapacitated me. A year ago, I wouldn't have been able to even process the concept; I don't want to remember what this would have been like six months before that.

I thank God for Draco Malfoy every day. He and Harry are the only reasons I got back on my feet. Malfoy came, and he told me that I had to start fighting again, that I'd missed the war, and he'd been out doing it. That it was my turn now. He made Harry come see me, talk to me, deal with the fact that Ron was dead and gone. Something I don' t think either of us was ready to know. He gave me my life back.

I'm so haunted by idea of Ron still, though. The idea of our life together pops up at the strangest times, but not as often as it used to. It's just the aftershock. I think more about what life should be like with Draco now than I do about what it would have been like with Ron. The images are frighteningly different. Loving Ron was simple, it was what I did; it was the role I was playing in the story we were telling. Feeling whatever it is I feel for Malfoy is different, it's the second time around and I feel like I can see what's coming half the time, and then he changes the playing field all together. We aren't even playing the same game we were playing last month.

"Hermione?" Harry said, stepping into the room. I was sitting on my bed, dressed and waiting for he or Draco to come get me. "You're sure you want to do this?"

"It's Ginny," I replied, getting up to stand in front of him, "I love her too."

"I know that, but Hermione…" Harry trailed off and shrugged. "I worry."

"I know you do. But you know that I need to do this, and you know I'm safer if I'm with you and Malfoy than I am anywhere else in the world," I told him, standing on tiptoe to look him in the eyes. Harry's gotten so tall now, he towers over poor Ginny and I'm only up to his shoulders.

"Do you still find it as strange as I do thinking of him as one of the good guys?" Harry asked, taking my arm and pulling me towards the door. This is how it's always been between us. We have an understanding, and once it's there, it stays. Harry and I have an understanding that we are never going to fall in love with each other and another understanding that I will be his children's godmother. We've never said anything about it, but we both know. And now we have an understanding that I will fight beside him again. Maybe for the last time, but in a good way; perhaps this will really be the last fight.

"I find it stranger, I can promise you that," I said, and he nearly smiled.

"You know, Hermione, if you and Malfoy ever decided too…" Harry trailed off again, shrugged, and proceeded. "Do something, I'd be OK with it."

"No, you wouldn't. You'd throw a fit on principle and you know it," I replied, but on the inside I was ecstatically. I'd known Harry wouldn't mind, of course, because it's the sort of thing I know about Harry, but to hear him say it was something entirely different. It seems pathetic and juvenile seeing as I'm almost twenty and I've spent most of the past year and a half hoping to die, but it does say that he's probably interested in me. And that makes me happy, which wasn't an accomplishment until recently.

"You could do so much better," Harry agreed, again, almost smiling. "I, um…"

"I know."

"Potter! Granger! Stop dawdling and get down here, would you?" Malfoy called up from the entrance hallway of the house Harry had built here for the Order.

"Coming," I called back. "Interrupt a moment, will you."

"It's what I live for, Granger, to ruin your mushy moments with Potter. You've no idea how exasperating you two are," Malfoy snorted, at the same time holding my coat out for me. "You doing alright, Potter?"

"I'd really like to kill something, actually," Harry answered. That's good. I hate seeing him so depressed, I want Harry to act. It's just what he does. Harry's the hero, and he's got to go fix it. And of course, he will, because saving people is most simply what he does. He has a bit of a thing about it I think I once said.

"Your lucky day, then. I'll even let you have this one, if I get to punch him first."

"You two are terrible," I told them, as I did up the buttons on my coat quickly, watching Harry do the same and Malfoy buckle his cloak. He's the only one of the three of us who wears wizarding clothes; really, Harry and I don't anymore, not since school.

"Would you prefer we hugged? I could hug him," Malfoy said, dead serious. "It would be touching."

"I'll cast an Unforgivable on you if you try," Harry told him, promptly. "You're fine though, right?"

"Such tenderness," Malfoy commented, "But yes, I'm fine, shocked and murderous, but fine. And I've no doubt you would cast the curse."

And with that, Harry slid his arm back into mine, and Malfoy opened the door, and we headed out like the heroes we like to pretend we aren't.


	4. Control:Ginny

It ain't mine! A/N: OK- this is dedicated to Stewie who is probably dead, thanks to certain people named Bo who I will not name. Stewie deserves a cameo somewhere... you just wait for that! 

"When Harry finds me, you are going to regret you were ever born," I spat furiously as Pansy Parkinson came into my room. She was cuddling a baby, but I could tell it wasn't one of the boys. The hair was a fine blonde and the child was tiny. My boys are sturdy, and if she's laid a hand on them, Harry won't even get a chance.

"I never thought you were so dependant, Weasley, stupid, of course, but rather pigheaded as well. Besides, I doubt he'll find you. Not without Draco, and he wont' help him, now will he?" She'd trailed off to address the baby. "Will he, Sabin? No, Daddy will take care of us when he comes home."

"You're going to be very surprised very shortly," I said, with a sickly sweet smile. I know how to play this game. They're not hurting me, and I don't think they will, after all, there must be something in it for them other than getting to kill my sons and I if they haven't murdered us yet. And I know the boys are alive, because they have to be alive. I will not lose my babies. I will not.

"Optimistic, too, isn't she?" Pansy said. "Well, that shan't last long, I suppose. And if you're at all interested, darling," now she's moved on to me, in a ridiculously bright tone, "those twins of yours are fed well and changed. I do so love children." My gut tells me that this woman shouldn't be touching my children. Another part, the part that isn't so much a mother as a soldier, tells me that she's telling the truth and it's better for her to touch my sons than for them to go hungry.

"Good," I answered, biting my tongue. "If you hurt one hair on their heads, I won't let Harry kill you. I'll do something much, much worse. Wand or no wand."

"What, send me to Azkaban? We both know you haven't got it in you to hurt me," she said, giggling. She's hardly changed since she was sixteen, she doesn't look older or more tired or wiser, she just looks more excited.

"Oh, you'd be surprised what I can do when I put my mind to it," I said, turning too look at the gray walls of the room I was locked in. There were darker spots where paintings must have hung. Whoever she's working with is far smarter than she is, certainly. They know what they're doing. Portraits, at least in our world, are dangerous. They can send messages, and overall, they've lovely dispositions. A portrait is as biased in personality as it is in appearance. "What were the pictures of?"

"I can't tell you that," she said, looking dubiously at the spots on the wall. "He said not too." I was right, then, the portraits were related to the place, a house, I thought, still in England, but remote. Nowhere near Hogsmeade, and certainly far from Godric's Hollow. If the portraits were related to the house, it must have been an old family, obviously purebloods. But it wouldn't be Parkinson House, it had been burnt a year ago, I knew. Malfoy Manor was a possibility, I supposed, if the child were Draco's daughter, the house would have admitted her, certainly. Or, there was an off chance we were at Twelve Grimmauld Place, since Malfoy's daughter would be far more directly related to the Blacks than Harry, or my sons would have owned the house, or been directly in the line of descent, and they would have opened the doors.

But I know this is getting me nowhere. There's no chance of escape from this room without outside help or my wand, there are no windows, the walls are relatively sound, and I can't even go near the door without being knocked out again. And the only person who's come so far is Pansy, who seems just a touch to deranged to help me.

"Is he strict?" I asked, more to break the silence than to hear the answer. I can tell he's strict, and I can tell she respects him. Tonks trained me as an Auror while I was pregnant, and I know my way around interrogation and interpretation.

"He's got to be," she answered, "But he loves Sabin, you know. I made him godfather. I think Draco will like that. Do you?"

"I can't tell you what Draco would think," I said, "I think he'd like to know he has a daughter though. Have you ever told him?"

"In a way," she said and then, giggling again, turned and left. "Don't go near the door again, I wouldn't want you damaged for the end."


	5. Direction:Harry

It ain't mine. A/N: OK- this is a very short chapter and so are the next few- and I apologize! And thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far. 

"Where do we go first?" I asked, turning to Malfoy outside the door at Godric's Hollow. Somehow, we'd all thought of leaving the house, getting dressed, taking those steps. But now we were standing on the doorstep, utterly clueless.

And I wanted to do something. They weren't dead yet, and they wouldn't be dead. Ever. Ginny and I have talked about this, I go first, if she has to kill me herself, I go first. I couldn't take losing her, and once I know our sons, I won't be able to stand the idea of losing them either. I can't even stomach it now.

"Well, we've both been over the Burrow," Malfoy said, "that only leaves everywhere else on earth."

"Not everywhere," said Hermione, logically. "I don't think we need to check in Madagascar." When it was Ron, Hermione and I, our way of reacting to tragedy was to act tragic. When it's Hermione, Malfoy and I we react by being fantastically sarcastic for long periods of time. I think it satisfies our needs to insult each other, and also to get things actually done instead of moping about them for months on end.

"OK. Africa's out then."

"So's Scotland, no one's that stupid," Malfoy said. "Well, you are, Potter, but we're not looking for you." It would be idiotic to do anything in Scotland; as soon as the Order was formally disbanded most of us headed either back home or to Scotland to rebuild Hogwarts. No one is ever going to try anything anywhere where Remus Lupin has decided to raise a family, there simply aren't people that dim.

"What about Parkinson House? Aren't Pansy's parents dead?" Hermione asked Malfoy.

"I burnt it down, actually, it's probably not one of their top choices," Malfoy said. "I had too," he added when Hermione glared at him. "Gorgeous library, though." She continued to glare at him. "Would you prefer I saved the books or killed the evil people?"

"Killed the evil people, I suppose. Malfoy Manor is completely out of the question, isn't it? Is there anywhere else? It needs to be symbolic, I suppose, to make it easier for us to find them," Hermione sighed. "Why do you insist on having such a complicated history, Harry?"

"It's not my fault!" I defended myself.

"He's right, actually. No one can orchestrate Potter's life," Malfoy said. "But let's blame it on him anyway. Now, there's the Shrieking Shack, but I'd kill myself stuck in there with three infants, and Severus despises children. I would know, he's my godfather."

"Also, it's in Scotland," I pointed out.

"How do you feel about children, Malfoy?" said Hermione, looking anxious in that way that shows she knows exactly what she's saying and wants to make sure he and I don't figure it out. I think it's funny, but she doesn't, I suppose.

"I'd always thought I'd like them," Malfoy said, "and now I've got one, and I'm not letting Pansy keep her, would you?"


	6. Sexy:Draco

A/N: It's all kinda bad news. This chapter is, I believe the shortest or second-shortest in the fic. So, we're going uphill there. But I'm going to my Nanny's funeral this weekend (my grandma- it's a Scottish thing, apparently), so I don't know if my uncle's going to feel nice enough to let me on his internet. But- I will keep up with the updating at least on weekdays- it's my goal to have all twenty-odd chapters of this up by Christmukkah- though that might be pure lunacy. Ah well, it runs in my blood. 

One of the things I have always loved most about Hermione is the way she's the most intelligent person I've ever met and yet when she's trying to play coy, she's utterly clueless. To most people, discovering that their ex-girlfriend had their baby is not an opportunity for flirting with a current love interest. I am not most people. I see right and wrong with extreme clarity, I will raise this baby. And no, I'm not completely prepared to do that, but I know it's the right thing to do, and I will do it. It doesn't cause me much trouble.

"Where does Snape live, anyway?" Harry asked, suddenly, and I glared at him, because he was interrupting. "I mean, the Princes were purebloods, there must be a place where they lived."

"The Princes were insane, though," Hermione said, with that look she always gets when she knows something neither of us does. "The house would bar anyone who wasn't full-blood from entering, it's still there, obviously, but Snape couldn't go in. Nor could the twins. Anyway, none of us would know where it was, it was built in the nineteen eighties, after Snape's mother left."

"But Pansy could, and Ginny, and my daughter," I said. "They're as pureblooded as I am." Hermione nodded. "And the call is for Harry and I, not for you, if it's something that wouldn't pose a challenge to you then it would be best if you couldn't get in."

"Ginny wouldn't get separated from the babies," Harry piped up, in that typical naïve way of his.

"I think if she'd been given a choice she wouldn't have gotten kidnapped, Harry," Hermione said, primly, moving from me to stand between us again. She bit her lip, looping her arm through Harry's again. She's always been like that with him, and it used to drive me insane, until I realized that there's nothing behind it. Well, there's something behind it, obviously, but it's just a friendship, nothing more. That made me feel a great deal better.

Not that I wouldn't get her if she and Potter were together.

It would just be slightly harder.

"So where is this place?" I asked, "It seems like a decent starting point." Hermione gave me one of those long-suffering looks of hers before she replied.

"Malfoy, is your house on a map?" She asked, still giving me the look. I shook my head, of course the Manor has never made an appearance on a map, it's unplottable, it would have been stupid to have it any other way. At least fourteen people wanted to kill my father at any given point in my childhood. "And, what, exactly, is it that leads you to think the Princes would put theirs on one?"

"Malfoys are superior to all other beings, or didn't you know?" Harry said, "but that's a good starting point. For Malfoy, I can't go in either, which means if anyone's there at all, it's Pansy."

"And Ginny. Think about it, if she had any chance in hell of finding her kids, she would, wouldn't she?" Hermione asked, turning to Harry again. "So, are we sending Draco?"

"I'll go, I'm not getting sent," I said, indignant. Hermione gave me on of those looks that reads 'of course, dear,' she only gives those when she knows she's won. "And, if I'm going, where am I going?"

"And if he's going, what am I supposed to do?" Harry asked, looking at Hermione.

"I'm not going into mortal peril while he stays home and does research!"

"I'm not staying home and doing research while he's in mortal peril!"

"And you're both fathers?" Hermione asked, irritated. "Harry and Draco- birth control for the ages. I cannot believe people sleep with you two."

"Person," Harry said, raising his hand, I gave the obligatory male snort of disgust before defending myself.

"You'd shag me," I said, obviously to Hermione, not Potter. "I'm sexy."

"Is now the time for this conversation?" She asked, blushing furiously, but not, I noticed, denying it.

"You would! I knew you would!"


	7. Safety:Hermione

A/N: Last update until either very late Saturday or Sunday. I don't know how long I'm going to be away. Either one night or two. Or possibly none. It's all a mystery. Anyway- happy reading- and this is filler! I forgot to write this chapter and only realized it the day before I posted this. 

This is the feeling of an adventure that I remember from when I was eleven. Fresh and new and undefeatable, and you can feel your heart pounding. I've had too much of the bad kind of pounding, and it's nice to be doing the right thing again.

It's been a long time since I've been in a library as good as the one in the Ministry, where Harry and Draco decided we should go. It's a nice feeling to be surrounded by books again- they're like insulation. It was one of the first things Malfoy did- brought me books, must have been over a hundred of them. He took to reading to me. I listened to his voice more than the words.

"Hermione?" Malfoy said, coming up behind me, "can you give me a street to look on?" His voice was soft, the one he uses when he knows Harry isn't listening. Harry was too involved in the genealogy of Malfoy's family- we had five generations to track back, and I wanted at least as many resources. Lucius was almost as good a liar as his son, so I didn't trust only the official documents. I needed Malfoy to get into that house, or I needed to get a hold of someone else.

"Diagon Alley," I said, he nodded. Then, he put a hand on my shoulder- he was warm.

"Hermione, you don't have to come," he took a deep breath, "I don't want you to come." His hand was heavy on my shoulder, he has big hands.

It had been so long since anyone touched me when he came into my life. I think Harry was afraid of me- he'd give me little things to do, when he thought I was able to, but that was all. Harry didn't know what to do with me, because he was too broken himself. I don't think Ron's death affected Malfoy at all- he understood that it was Harry's fault Ron had died.

I admit that, yes. Harry should have sent Malfoy in and gotten Ron out, and we all know that. He played too cautiously, he played the game we were meant too, and he lost. Harry lost Ron, and I think that killed him almost as much as it did me. Harry can just hold it together better.

"It's," I took a deep breath. Malfoy understands loyalty, trust; blood most of all. But the idea of a real family eludes him. He just can't grasp anything that deep. It's why he'll be a good father- but not the best. Harry, though he has no proper right too, understands family. He knows what we all need, because he never had it. He'll give that to Ginny, to his sons- he'll try to give me what he can. "She should have been my sister," I say finally. And he nods. I made it sound like loyalty- he knows about that.

Funny I should say that of someone who betrayed his own family, isn't it? But then, he was almost a murderer for his mother and he was a murderer for his ideals. We don't use those words, though. Harry calls them 'casualties' unless he knows them, and then he doesn't call them anything. Malfoy doesn't tell me anything, but I've asked. He's a fearsome fighter they say to me. Tonks told me it was like he was a different person, Remus went so far as to compare it to changing for him. Like he's made of steel, he told me. He's only been hit once, that anyone knows about- Crucio. And he just shook it off.

There are a grand total of two people in the world who can do that- I live with both of them. Harry has the power- the Unforgivables aren't the same with him. Crucio, once he learned how to control himself, is, to him, like someone punching you in the nose. It hurts, but not much. Malfoy, well, he's a powerful wizard, no doubt- but he's not that powerful. Sheer willpower. It's a different kind of strength. And not necessarily a better one.

"If you get killed," he says, "I'm not going to your funeral," I bite my lip, and even though everyone else I know would be falling over themselves with apologies, he doesn't. "Don't stay here too long- Potter's brain's probably about to explode. Should be funny." But his hand rests on my shoulder a second longer than necessary as he walks away. And he's laughing.

People don't like to laugh around me. It's like I shouldn't get the good parts until I'm over the bad- Malfoy knows about good and evil, understands they're just two sides of the same coin. You don't get one without the other.


	8. Reasoning:Severus

A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing! And also, thank you to the reviewer whose name isn't coming to me and who I'm too lazy to look up (sorry!) who's reviewed nearly every chapter! Since I have no sevvie-sense this entire chapter once again gets a shout-out to Dani, who is one of the most fantabulous people ever!

I despise children. They're noisy whining little brats until they're fourteen and then they're noisy, whiny despicably self-righteous little brats until they die. Sadly, I like my life more. I like Vernon Dursley a great deal less than I like either children or my life.

"There's police you know, even for you people. They'll find you, and they'll set us free," now, I really do doubt that anyone would set this pitiful lot loose on society. Especially Potter. I do wonder if I can work sending them into Azkaban for the rest of their natural lives into the deal for his sons. Well, perhaps that would be a bit ambitious. That Weasley girl might do it though; they've always been a loyal type. Idiots.

"Get back, Vernon!" The woman shrieked, in that hysterical voice of hers. For someone with such a lovely sister, she's a wonder. Hideous, actually, that hair is quite clearly fake, and her voice is so ridiculously shrill. I'm amazed even her oaf of a husband has stayed with her this long. Well, I suppose if a woman would stay with me, anything is possible.

But she didn't, did she? No, Narcissa Black had to marry Lucius Malfoy and pump out a pureblooded brood. Pity about no one knowing she was barren, though, it's a miracle they had the one child. Lucius always did say that he was lucky for it anyway, cited the history of dynastic wars in the family. Stopped all the inbreeding, killing each other off, if you ask me. Besides, that little snot of a boy could have done with a good beating from time to time.

Of course I always hated him, why wouldn't I? The only woman I ever felt a thing for had a child with the man who tormented me all through school for not being good enough to join his little gang of favorites. And, then, she had the nerve to make the child my godson, followed by the even greater nerve of raising him to be a spoiled betraying hopelessly inept wretch. I'll give her that she had a backbone of steel, at the very least.

It's because Narcissa's dead that I'm here now, in an odd way. It's maudlin, but I want to be able to go to her grave whenever I wish, even more than I don't want to go to Azkaban. I miss her, very much. For the first, childless, four years of her marriage, we hardly saw one another and then, only at formal occasions. Narcissa was ridiculously chaste then, wouldn't touch me or anyone else but her husband. After Draco was born though, they both took up their affairs, provided Draco never found out about them. Lucius was more varied in his conquests than Narcissa, as far as I know, I was the only one. But, Gods, the woman was a talented liar.

"My nephew will come save us!" The man screamed again. Why on earth does he feel he must screech? I do speak English, honestly. Just because I haven't felt predisposed to say all that much, it doesn't mean I'm mute.

"Your nephew abhors you, Mr. Dursley," I said, leaning back into the couch. "Now, if you'd get those dratted children and tend to whatever they want, perhaps I won't silence you. Oh, and tell your oaf of a son to turn whatever noise he's making now off."

"I will do no such thing!"

"Fine then," I said, making a leisurely reach for my wand, "as you wish."

"I'll go, I'll go, just don't use that thing on Vernon!" The wife said, and rushed out of the room. From down the corridor you could hear the sounds of her speaking to whichever one of the Potter brats it was. "Now, now, let's calm down, I'm sure whoever and wherever your mother is will be here to fetch you eventually."


	9. Plan:Harry

A/N: Thanks to the people who've reviewed. Oh- and a couple of people said it seemed a little weird. I take that as a compliment, don't worry, even if you didn't mean it that way, but anyway- what were you expecting when I mentioned Draco's sexy dance in the summary?

"Here," Hermione said, gazing at the map of the street we were on, after a quick detour to the Ministry to look through old records and collect a map, we were in Diagon Alley, looking for the shop front that would lead us to Prince House. "It's got to be here, the store was owned by Everett Prince when the house should have been built, and the store has had no profits, since, essentially, ever."

"Is this that mysteriously tax-exempt one?" Malfoy asked, looking at it dubiously. "I don't know, I think I went in once, they sell brooms, don't they?"

"No, they don't, records say they don't sell anything- there's never been a single shipment in or out of the store. As for the tax-exempt part, it must have been bribery, it would hardly be a first for one of the old families would it?" Hermione raised her eyebrows.

"No, it wouldn't. Now, let's review the crackpot scheme again," Malfoy said, making his opinions of my plan clear once again.

"You'll go in here, you came out top in OWLs, so if there are any enchantments I'm assuming you can get past them. If we don't hear from you in three hours, we'll come back for you," Hermione said. "Meanwhile, Harry and I are literally retracing our steps. We'll start with Godric's Hollow, and go to every halfway significant place on our way back there again. Get Ginny to take the baby home, and you take Pansy in."

"Isn't she cute when she thinks she's commanding an army?" Malfoy asked me, smirking. "You're adorable. And yes, I know. I'll send you a dragon if anything goes wrong, really, or if things go right. Anything you want me to tell her for you, Potter?" God, everything, I can't even put into words the thousands of things I want to tell her. I mean, I haven't seen her in almost two years, and so much has happened since then, we're such different people than we were then. Or at least I am, I don't even know how being a parent might have changed Ginny, or the months of isolation with only the twins and a few visits from unobtrusive Order members.

It scares me sometimes, with the idea that since it's been so long, we might not fit any more. And Ginny and I always fit so well; it felt, for those weeks when we were really together, like she understood everything.

"Tell her I love her," I said, finally.

"Oh, stunningly original, Potter," Malfoy snorted.

"And tell her I'll bring them home," I added, biting my tongue to keep from spilling out everything else I wanted too say to her. Malfoy and Hermione didn't need to hear any of it. Besides, Hermione looked as if she was about to burst into tears, which is a look I know far too well. And, as always when she's decided to cry- and I'm convinced she does it consciously at this point- she hugged me. "It's all right, Hermione," I said, patting her hair.

"You are such a girl, Granger," Malfoy said, "I'll tell her, Harry. And you know I'll bring her back."

"Yeah, I do. Thank you, and when you're in there just, do whatever you have too, alright?" I said, "and get Ginny first, she doesn't look it but she's an excellent fighter. Then get the baby, then handle Pansy once Ginny and the baby are back at home, alright?"

"Hard as it is to believe, Potter, I've actually done this before," Malfoy said, "and, honestly, Hermione, this is overdoing the girly bit. Hush," Hermione pulled herself away from my shoulder and glared at him.

"If you get hurt I'm not going to heal you," she said. Of course, we both knew she would, she practically had a heart attack when Malfoy fell down the stairs and sprained his ankle a few weeks ago.

"Could we maybe have a minute, Potter, just before I go in?" Malfoy asked, giving me on of those looks of his that indicates that if I don't do what he wants, he's going to rap me over the head with something.

"Sure, I'll meet you back home, Hermione, just outside the Wards."


	10. Permission: Draco

A/N: I am without an excuse for never posting and also for the shortness of these chapters. **is sorry**

"What do you want, Malfoy? If it's about the plan, it's perfectly good," Hermione said pulling her jacket tighter around herself and looking just to my left.

"No, it's not about the plan, Hermione," I said, digging my hands into my pockets to keep from grabbing her there and then. Her eyes were still glittering with unshed tears, that deep, warm brown glinting in the fall light. I never realized the beauty of her hideous hair when we were in school, and I should have, there was so much more of it then. She cut it off, or someone cut it off for her, two years ago, and she's never tried to grow it out again. "It's about something else."

"Get on with it, I don't want to keep Harry waiting," she said, briskly, but still sounding nervous. I was feeling that way, though. I shouldn't have felt this way, I'd kissed girls before and I'd seduced girls before, but those girls weren't like her. And Hermione doesn't react the way the rest of react to any given situation.

"If I said I wanted to kiss you, would you let me?" I asked her, finally, and her eyes snapped to mine, As if she though I was making fun of her in some way.

"Are you likely to say that?" Hermione asked, taking a step closer to me. I kept my hands in my pockets, even though I felt like I was being pulled towards her. If we were going to do this, I wanted her explicit permission, after everything that's happened to Hermione, she needs to take control of things like this, and I need to let her do that.

"I do very much want to kiss you," I said, and she took another step closer, looping her arms around my neck, but she's done that a thousand times before, of course. Hermione trusted me, and I knew she cared for me, and she shows it when she cares for people. "But I need for you to tell me that I can."

"And how," and here she paused, moving and inch closer, so I could feel her breath on my lips, and she was standing on her tiptoes. "How would I tell you, if I wanted to kiss you, too?"

"You could kiss me," I said, hardly breathing, waiting for the warmth of her to move just those few precious inches closer to me. "Or you could just tell me. Either way, you'd better do it soon before you drive me crazy."

"And, if I said that I wanted you to kiss me, and I'm not saying I do," she smiled, moved a little closer, and now I could almost taste her lips on mine, almost feel their movements. "What would happen then?"

"We'd kiss," I said, "and then I'd go to play the knight in Potter's blessed absence, and we could talk about what happens next tonight."

"And what do you want to happen next?" She asked me, pulling back to make eye contact.

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"I'd like to move into your bedroom."

"And what, Malfoy, would we do there?"

"You're a tease, Granger," I grumbled, "tell me if you're going to kiss me or not, or I'm going inside."

"Oh?" She said, "I'm not going to kiss you at all, in that case. You're going to kiss me, you started all this, it's only fair you do the work."

"I started it?" I asked, laughing, I had my answer, and now I could play before I took my prize. It was taking every inch of my self-restraint, but I was going to do this right for once. "I clearly remember you assaulting me on the train in first year."

"And I clearly remember you storming into my room and telling me to either get out of bed or give up and die already," she said. "That started this. Besides, it was your fault for wandering about the train like you owned it."

"I actually do own it now, coincidentally," I grinned. "In some strange, corporate way, in any case."

"Malfoy?"

"What?" I said, or at least I tried to say it, but she moved so close to me that I couldn't even see her face any more.

"Kiss me already, would you?"

So, I did.


	11. Gush: Hermione

A/N: Do I gotta use the reply thing to reviews? Well, I will, but don't' expect it to happen often!

God, but Draco can kiss. I mean, really, really kiss. He makes me gush, and nothing makes me gush. Many things, like Harry's heartfelt speeches and old movies, make my cry, but nothing makes me quite this girlish. He's so passionate and he puts everything into just a kiss, and even though my eyes are closed, I just know it's got to be him in my arms.

"You're so warm," he mumbled, pulling back and resting his head in the crook of my neck, placing a few light, teasing kisses there. I don't know when my scarf fell to the ground, besides, it was early to be wearing it anyway. It just seems that I get colder faster than everyone else, like this last summer, we had a heat wave, and I was in sweaters the whole time. Draco thinks I'm crazy.

It's funny, that just a kiss made me call him by his first name. I've wanted him for years, and I know him better than anyone else but Harry, but he's always been Malfoy to me. I doubt I'll ever be able to call him Draco to his face.

"No, I'm not, I'm freezing," I said, slipping out of his arms and taking a step back from him. "You'll be careful, won't you?"

"Of course, I'm always careful," he said, moving closer to me. "Can't I have a good luck kiss?"

"You only asked for one," I pointed out, stepping back again, closer to the door of the house.

"I also asked to move into your bedroom. I'm not planning on playing chess with you tonight," he said, and followed me.

"There's also going to be three infants in our house tonight, we'd be lucky if we had time to play chess, let alone anything else."

"But when we have time-" he began, looking at me and half closing his eyes.

"In about five years."

"You'll be worth the wait," he said, with a grin, and kissed me once more, before I had a chance to react."

"Be careful!" I called after him, and an old woman across the street gave me an odd look.

"Always am," He said, and as he turned I blew him a kiss in a moment of romanticism before I Disapparated.

"So," Harry said, the second I arrived at the front of the wards of Godric's Hollow, "is Malfoy half as a good a kisser as he thinks he is?" I looked away from him, blushing. "I'm happy for you, Hermione. You deserve to be in love again."

"I'm not in love with him," I objected, because I wasn't. I was just the closest thing to it.

"No, but you will be, trust me," Harry said, and then he went to work. "There's no one here, and I've got word that nothing suspicious has happened at Hogwarts or the Shrieking Shack lately."

"From who?" I asked, immediately, Harry can be too trusting sometimes. Letters are easily forged in our world, and he doesn't know half the ways you can do it.

"Remus and Mad-Eye, separate owls and secrecy charms all around," he said. "They're real."

"I wasn't expecting them to be there, anyway," I said, "it would have been too easy."

"Plus, if I snapped my fingers in that general area, fifty people would flatten them," Harry said. "That's a brilliant idea, flattening. I should really consider it."

"Is Remus coming, then?" I asked, knowing he probably was. I think he'd decided by then that he had to be everything for Harry, even though Harry didn't want it. Certainly no one could replace Lily, James or Sirius and Harry wasn't ready to replace Ron yet. None of us were.

"No, he wanted to stay with Tonks, I think," Harry said, "and I told Moody not to come."

"He listened to you?" I asked, I think, towards the end of the war, Mad-Eye began to recognize that Harry knew what he was doing, and deserved to be leading us. But he was never nice about it. And he never did it outright, he had to come in front of Harry, argue symbolically with him for a while, and then be sent off to do something that sounded important, but was more busy-work than anything else. Alastor Moody was a great Auror, but towards the end of the war, he was more of a madman than anything else. There's talk of making him the new Headmaster at Hogwarts, since Harry laughed at Scrimgeour when he asked and Remus said he'd prefer the right to teach at all, but I think even Harry would make a better Headmaster than Ablator.

"Well, in his way he did. I asked him if he'd mind watching after Malfoy for us, so he's lurking in Diagon Alley, somewhere," Harry looked down. "We should get going. I don't want to think about what could be happening right now."


	12. Listen: Dudley

A/N: Yes, this is only three hundred words long. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, the next one is SIGNIFICANTLY longer. Yes, I promise. 

"Please, please, please, please don't hurt Dudley!" I could hear my mother begging the man who'd entered our house, toting two infants he said were my cousin's.

Wonder if he's the father, anything's possible with that sort of person.

Also, Harry always spent far too much time on his hair.

I'll have to bring that up next time I see him.

"I don't think I could hurt your son, he's far too much blubber on him," the man- I think he called himself Snake, said. "Now, would you please leave me alone."

"Don't touch my wife!" My father screamed. Bloody right he shouldn't too, if he hadn't told me to stay in my room, I'd kill him. What' kind of name is Snake, anyway?

"If I raped her, do you suppose she'd stop screaming?"

"I'd keep screaming and that wouldn't be any- any- any-"

"And I certainly don't think I'd like her anymore, do you?"

"I'd bite you!"

"And that's discou-" Snake was interrupted by the sound of something hitting something else. Really, really hard.

"_Get down here, now Snape!" _Someone screamed from outside. "_And it'll end all the sooner."_

I could have sworn I heard him gulp from down the hall.

"Mind the children, please, just a minor disturbance," he said and rushed down.

I heard the door being opened, and then maybe falling off it's hinges, followed by the sound of something- probably a fist- hitting something else- probably Snake/Snape's face- almost as hard as the first thing hitting the first other thing. Well, he deserved it.

Making Potter miserable is fun, but kidnapping is a crime. If they have crimes in their world. I think I should just stick with what I know. Kidnapping is a crime. Here. And there. But they don't follow our laws.

All right, now I'm very confused.

"My sons, Snape, now."


	13. Part of Me: Harry

I never, ever thought I'd be this terrified right now. It was easy, I went in and I hit Snape a few times, he wasn't expecting it and it was sort of fun. But now, I have to be a father. I have to be part of a real family. I have to meet two people who are part of me. Literally.

I've never been more excited in my life, and I've never been more scared either. I'm only nineteen- I have no clue what I'm doing here. I don't know how to be a parent- I never had a parent! Ginny knows what she doing because, well, she's Molly's daughter. And I know she was scared at the beginning, but she got it right, or at least she did the best anyone could, with everything that was going on.

I'm not going to get this right. I know I love my sons, but I don't know why. I love them but I don't know them. I know why I love Ginny- because she's gorgeous, funny, smart, strong and brave. I know why I love Hermione- because she always knows the answer, because she was one of the first people to give a damn about me and because she's always been there. I love my sons because they are who they are- James and Sirius Potter. _Family_.

We rounded the corner to my old room, it seemed like the trip from the front hall to here had never taken so long, and I'm a little surprised that Snape didn't lock them in the broom cupboard. Hermione opened the door for me, placing a hand on my arm.

"Leave him with me," she said, "go, do this." And then she smiled and closed the door behind me. And I saw them.

Ginny always dressed Jamie in blue and Sirius in red, it was just her way of telling them apart, I think. She always said she would stop the second they turned three, but I was so thankful for it now. Because right then, at that moment, that was so terrifying and so amazing, I could say their names. Jamie was lying at the foot of the bed, and I went to him first.

Ginny hadn't been quite right in saying they had my eyes; his were deeper, with flecks of her brown in them. Jamie was awake, just looking at me and it felt a little like he was sizing me up.

"Hey, Jamie, I know you don't know me, but I'm your dad," I said, crouching down beside him, "and I'm probably going to be here for a long time now, so we'd best get to know each other. And I'm really sorry I haven't been around more." Then I picked him up, and walked over to Sirius at the end of the bed.

And I knew right then that these weren't identical twins. Jamie had appraised me and settled on that I was relatively snuggly and had at least apologized, judging by the fact that he was cozying up to my shoulder and preparing to fall asleep. Jamie had, I'd like to think, known who I was, and known that I was at least going to try. Sirius took one look at me and started to screech like nothing else I'd ever heard. Jamie ignored him and nuzzled into my neck as if to say 'well, I like you, in any case.'

Then, I learned the only skill that, according to Molly, any parent of twins will ever need to know. I juggled Jamie over to one shoulder with one arm around him, and scooped Sirius up into my other arm.

"So, you're Sirius, are you?" I asked, looking down at him, he looked somehow longer than Jamie, though he felt just as warm and just as perfect in my arms. "You're good looking, no doubt," I said, pulling him up so I could kiss the auburn mess of hair on his head. "Take after your mum, I think. She's got a temper, too."

I knew Snape had been feeding them, for whatever reason of his. Probably so I wouldn't kill him especially brutally. And I'm not going to kill him, because I can do things worse to a man than death. I can put him through the trials, for at least sixteen murders and being a Death Eater, which is now a crime in and of itself, as well as kidnap and intent to kill. All of that together would get a lucky man The Kiss, and Severus Snape will not be a lucky man.

It cut that my own son didn't want to be held by me, but I deserved it, didn't I? It was my fault they were there in the first place, my fault for not protecting them, for not just being there with them, for not doing what I knew was right. And I told him that.

I don't know how long I was in that little room with them, it might have been ten minutes, it might have been a particularly long eternity, but when I came out of that room, I was a different person. We were all forced to grow up fast, and I know that, but I went farther in that room than I have since or ever will again.


	14. Match: Draco

A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews! You have no idea how happy I was to come home and find four new ones. I will try to respond to all the signed ones over the weekend, but I make no promises! I will do it eventually- I'm going on a trip two weeks from now, so I should have some spare time then! Anyway, I can't believe how short this was... and interesting fact about the next few chapters- they were written in my neighbour's tiny tiny plane and all typos are 'cause I feared for my life at the time. 

I've never gotten scared before, and I wasn't scared as I found Ginny Weasley, who immediately started glaring at me.

"I knew it," she hissed, furiously, and I barely restrained laughter.

"You know, you and Potter are the best match I've ever seen," I said, walking over and beginning to untie her, watching her puzzle over that for a minute. "I'm still one of you lot. House only lets purebloods in, so Harry sent me," I helped her out of the chair she was tied too. "Why did you get tied up?"

"I rushed Pansy," she replied, managing to look vaguely guilty. I understand what Potter sees in her; she is gorgeous as well as adorable. Nothing on Hermione, mind, but lots of boys would do Ginny.

"Potter will love that," I said, "you're alright, aren't you?"

"I'm fine. Did Harry tell you anything? Where are Sirius and James? What about that baby, is it really yours?" She said, a quick rush of words, "and how did you get in?"

" Harry says he loves you, and that he'll bring the boys home," I said, looking her over, just to be sure. I did like the Weaslette, despite everything, and I wanted her to be all right, and she's just like Potter, she'd happily lie about it. "I've got no clue, but Hermione had some ideas, we're meeting at Godric's Hollow in about two and half hours and if they don't have your sons by then, we're calling in the Order."

"You can't do that anymore," she objected. Ginny had been living one of the most isolated lives imaginable for years, her only protection was Potter and her anonymity, even guards would have been too much at one point. If you hurt her, you killed Potter, and half the world wants to do that.

"People are loyal to him," I explained, "if he asked, we'd all jump. But he didn't want to," even when Hermione and I had suggested it, I didn't add. If we'd had the Order behind us, I would have had at least ten people with me, There were over forty purebloods by the end of the war, and most of them were still willing to help Harry. He inspires loyalty, trust, love; he's everything he's meant to be, at least in public. But she wouldn't have known that. She's not in love with the public Potter; she's in love with the real person who I know. She has no knowledge of who Potter is for everyone else, in all likelihood. We were only allowed to tell her if he died, of if there was a possibility- a more serious possibility- that she'd be attacked. Potter wrote her once every three months during the best part of the war, and even now, she hasn't been able to write him back. Tonks is the only one who's seen her that he knows of, and even that was without Harry's official approval. "And secondly, he thinks it's his fault."

"Does that really come as a surprise to anyone?" she asked, almost smiling. "I want to go to him, where is he?"

"That, you can't do," I said. "It was my suggestion, too, though, if you care to know. He and Hermione came up with a plan and it's probably going to get us all lost or disturbed. In three hours, if we're not in Godric's Hollow, they'll come here. If they're not in Godric's Hollow, I go hunting," I shook my head. It really was a phenomenally bad plan, as I'd told them both, loudly. But when it comes down to it, I'm just a soldier, even if my army is defunct, and Harry's the general.

"And me?"

"I doubt Potter's ever letting you go outdoors again," I replied, "you're to help me get the baby, and then take her to Godric's Hollow while I take care of Pansy."

"Are you going to kill her?" Ginny asked, and that shouldn't be a questions that I'm used to people asking, or that she means seriously, but it is. I've killed, and I'd do it again.

"No, I'm not," I said, "Potter and Snape, I can't say anything for. He's furious."

"I'm angrier," Ginny claimed, hands going to her hips.

"Well, maybe," I said, nearly laughing. "We haven't got the time to decide, though. Pansy's not half so stupid as you thinks she is."


	15. Broken: Hermione

We once spent a summer with the Dursleys, Harry, Ron and I. The last summer we ever had together. The first summer for Ron and I. Last summer for us, too, I suppose. It was a hellish two weeks, the world was falling apart around us and we were growing up too fast for anyone's liking, and we had to do chores.

Sometimes, it felt like the only normal thing left. That summer, Dudley was at a correctional institute- or at least that's what Harry said after it was announced he'd be at a camp all summer. Ron and I shared his room; Mr. and Mrs. Dursley didn't care so long as their lawn got mowed.

That bed, right there, with the child's covering of blue sailboats, too many, too flat pillows, that's where I lost my virginity. I went into this room, assuming I could lock Snape in it and leave. I couldn't. I collapsed onto the bed, crying, wanting the past to come back. Wanting Ron.

Wanting Draco more than anything else.

It used to be that I'd have fits, Harry called them storms and I was given light sedative potions, and if he could, he'd sit with me. He was always nervous about it, though. Then Draco came and said I couldn't live out the rest of my life in a stupor. At first, he'd just sit with me, and then one day, it didn't happen. For the first time in nearly a year, I could leave my room without the memories assaulting me, without the collapse. The next day, I woke in the night screaming. And he held me, wrapped me in his arms and whispered anything he could think of to try to calm me down.

Perhaps that's when he fell in love with me. I don't know and I don't care.

This wasn't a feeling I was familiar with until Ron's death. And I can say that now. His murder. His passing. All the stupid euphemisms for death and gone and killed and left you that I've ever heard, I can say all of those now. But it's when it jumps up on me- when I know but I don't know- that I feel this way. When Harry makes pasta- Ron's favorite, the plainer the better- and doesn't tell me. When I come downstairs to see he and Draco playing chess- launching the pieces at each other, cheating outrageously half the time.

And it's all so familiar to me now, the stages of it.

I'm broken, first, I can't think, or feel, or do anything but collapse on the spot. And that sounds like the worst part, but it's not.

Then I'm caught up in it, and it's like being in a net. And not so much alone, I feel crowded out of my own mind by my own demons. That's the worst part. I see his face then. I haven't forgotten a single feature, a single motion. When I see him, he's sleeping.

And there's a blank after that. I don't know if that's healing- it's like a sadness hangover. I'm still awake; I can function. Sometimes it's only been three minutes since I was perfectly fine. But I'm not quite fine, it used to be that I could hear laughter in the background- a ringing sound in my ears, and I thought people were laughing at me.

It's funny now, to think that I was insane for so long. My healing- and I like to call it that, recuperation sounds so clinical- took six months. And I want to believe that I'm healed, too. I think I am healed.

I like to thank God for that.


	16. Used:Pansy

It was frightening to see him after all this time, he's grown, I think. Broader, and he's different, too, different in a way I can touch. He doesn't seem stronger, because he was always too strong for his own good, anyway, but perhaps more confident. Accomplished would be a better word, I think.

His father always insisted on concise language- and that was the word he used, as well. He always said that a certain degree of curtness was necessary, though. Never, he used to say, in his most impressively grand tones, never be verbose, Draco, it makes you seem upper class.

I do not know why a man so utterly obsessed with class didn't want his son to seem upper class. Besides, we were, we were the elite- our wedding should have been the event of the decade- people had always described both our families as 'dynasties' and we would have had a 'dynastic alliance'. All that didn't change the fact that he never did fall in love with me, though.

"There's a lot of ways we could handle this, Pansy," he says, finally. He's not speaking English, and I know it's so I know he hasn't brought the troops. It still hurts. "I, personally, would let you go if I thought you had half a chance of escape to France." People have always talked about that, the French aren't extraditing anyone to England and most especially not accused Death Eater's. "I'd give you the summer house there, honestly." He said, half-candid and half-calculating, if that's possible.

"But you've been in Potter's pocket for years," I said, smiling at him. I spoke English, I hadn't brought mine either. "I think I always knew."

"Everyone thinks they always knew," he said, laughing. "Be honest, Pansy, you didn't have a clue, I was just that good." He was always very conceited, just like his father. It's funny to talk like this, like we used too, with the world hanging in the balance. It's surreal, but oddly appropriate.

"Well, I did," I said, "The summer house was always gorgeous."

"Father hated it, do you remember? He closed it when I was a baby," he said, "Mother liked it there." I think Draco did honestly love his mother, an oddity for a Malfoy heir, they're trained not too love at all, in some way. Loyalties create bonds create emotions create promise and a Malfoy never breaks his word- which is why he avoids giving it at all.

"Severus always went with you," I said, switching over so we were speaking the same language. The code- our code, I like to think- is a blend of Latin, Spanish, French and a touch of Greek. It makes for interesting grammar. I was remembering the summer after our fourth year when Lucius and my father stayed at home while the rest of us went to the summer home near Paris. It was beautiful there- and the two of us went to the Eiffel tower on our own one night- Mum spent nights on end at home and Narcissa never did seem to want us around that summer.

It's sad to think that that was the most romantic night of my life. I suppose, at least, there can't be very much romance in Azkaban, after all. Not even now that the Dementors are gone.

"He hated it, too," he said. "I've been thinking of spending some time there, maybe a year or two," he said, offhand. "I haven't been since I was fifteen."

"I remember," I said, shakily. "Will our daughter have nursemaids, Draco?" I didn't want that, and I could tell, just looking at him, that he didn't want me. When he said he was leaving, he meant he was leaving.

"What did you call her?" He asked, finally, and I don't exactly want to tell him. I look at him now and see someone different from who I was expecting- I see someone who would name his daughter something sunny and beautiful, not one of the gothic names he would have chosen only a year ago.

"Sabin," I said, finally, "Sabin Tara Malfoy," I was tearing up, which was strange, as nearly never cry. A part of me wanted him to take me in his arms, and the rest of me knew he wouldn't.

"It's a good name," he said, after a moment of looking at me. "I want to let you get away Pansy, and I could, if you wanted. But you need to tell me- did you believe in it?" I wanted to say no, honestly, I wanted to lie to him. But I had believed it, and he hadn't and that had been the biggest betrayal of my life. And now, I would give my daughter to him because he was a good man, and he would be a good father. He would raise her wrong, and I knew that too, but she would be accepted in this world, and that was more than either of her parents had ever had.

"I did, I mean, I do," I said, softly. "I'm willing to go to Azkaban for that, Draco. Do you arrest me or do you call someone?" I needed to know what would happen next, how long I'd be in prison for. All I knew was a very, very long time.

"I do it," he said, and he was speaking English. I've always thought it was a cold and clinical language, brisk. "you hand over the baby to Ginny- not directly to me. Potter'll get that sorted so I don't have to go through the courts. She'll be at the house three minutes after you let go of her, and she'll be well taken care of. I'll take you to the Ministry and then you won't see the sky for at least ten years- that's with a great lawyer."

"Which I can get," I said, "so, where's the Weaslette?"

"No, you can't, they'll take all of your family's money for the survivors fund- nasty little piece of legislature Hermione and Potter set up," he grins. "Colin would have thrown a fit." My father died a year ago, a heart attack they said- Mum left for France the next day and our house burnt down a few weeks after that. There were rumors that it was Draco, in all the months after that, and it was one of the times when I just didn't know what to believe.

There were so many.

"Will our baby call her mother?" I asked, choking on something that wasn't even there.

"Never," Draco said, "but I can't say she'll ever call you that either."


	17. Gentle:Harry

A/N: Thank God my hotel has internet… there is no one I know here but my family and we ALL know how that can get when one has a seven year old sister, yes? Well, anyway, this goes out to her in case the honour (that she doesn't know about) happens to somehow make her stop being so chicken about roller coasters. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed this story so far- replies when it strikes me as convenient, k? I know, I'm a horrible author. I should be shot.

Leaving my old room with my sons was the most surreal experience of my life. I think if there's one thing I didn't want in my children's life asides from a prophecy, it was probably Uncle Vernon. And there he was- throwing a fit because I hadn't been there sooner.

That old urge to just punch him in the nose came back very suddenly. I could hear Hermione crying in the background, for Merlin's sake. And Hermione is far more important than Vernon, so I shoved him aside, with brief instructions to sit on his arse and not do anything too loud, and went into Dudley's room. Snape was in a body-bind outside the room, and I was glad she'd had the presence of mind to do that- and no, I didn't restrain myself from kicking him.

"Hey," I said, kicking the door shut behind me and going beside her on the bed, letting Sirius rest upright against my stomach to free a hand to run through her hair. "Brought something for you," Sirius, watching me with interest, grabbed on to her hair a touch too hard and she squeaked- it was half laughter, I thought. "Gentle, Sirius," I said, pulling his hand gently along the tangled chestnut locks.

"Nothing in a name, huh?" She said, sitting up, tears still in her eyes, resting her head on my shoulder. "Sirius is this one?" A hand went to his cheek, "he looks like you."

"Yeah," I said, pressing a kiss to the crown of my son's head and another to her forehead, "except better."

"And that's James then?" Jamie was asleep and I could feel his soft little breathes against my neck- I could also feel his drool against my shoulder- but its all part and parcel I guess.

"Jamie," I corrected, "your godson."

"James Ronald," she said, smiling, "they're adorable, Harry." She reached over, taking one of Sirius' miniscule hands in hers, raising it to her lips. "They look a little like him, don't you think? Just 'round the eyes?"

"Yes," I said, seeing my best friend in the shape of Sirius' face as he laughed when Hermione tickled him, the curve of Jamie's lips as he frowned in his sleep. "Maybe they'll play Keeper," I grinned.

"And I can hex the competition for them, too," she grinned, half crying still. "I'm alright, Harry," she said, before I even had to ask the question. "It was just a little too much all at once."

"Do you want to go home?" I asked. I'd been counting on her to stay here with Snape while I took the babies home to their mother, and I didn't want to part with them just then- or wait an extra second to see Ginny.

"A little," she said, and then looked at me. "But I'll be alright, we can put him in the broom cupboard. It'll serve him right," she looked at me, "and I've got no memories there."

"It is fair, isn't it? I spent ten years in there because of him, he can spend a couple hours," I liked the idea of it- I could never take as much away from Snape as he had stolen from me- but I could give him just the smallest of tastes.

"Let's get him in then," she said, "will you hand them over just yet?" There are times when you have to thank providence for friends like Hermione who don't mind if you won't let go of your sons for even an instant, so I shook my head and she laughed. "I'll do it, and what do you want done with your aunt and uncle?"

"Much as I hate to say it, check them over for injuries, get her a cup of tea- shot of whiskey, maybe."

"You're about forty times too noble for my tastes, Harry," Hermione said, laughing, and pressing a quick kiss to Jamie's sleeping head as she stood, she left.


	18. Bundle:Draco

A/N: Uber-short again, I'm sorry! I don't try to do these things! They just end where they end!

It all sort of happened in a rush- one second there was a tiny, pale bundle in Ginny's arms and she was gone, after that I was at the Ministry, handing Pansy over to an extremely pregnant Tonks and after that I was in the foyer of the house, the same extremely pale bundle in my arms, staring at me with wide, grey eyes- my eyes.

"She's fussy," Ginny said after a moment, "she should really properly be being breast-fed, but there's marvelous substitutes now, I use them for the boys sometimes."

"How old is she?" I asked, mentally calculating the youngest she could possibly be- two weeks or so, I thought.

"I'd think about two months," she said, "Hermione's had Healer's training though, she'll be able to tell you better."

"She should be back by now," I said, finally, "she and Potter."

"I'm just waiting," Ginny said, her face breaking into a bright grin. "Where's the sitting room? We should settle down somewhere quiet- you can still hear the cars from here and she'll want to be getting to sleep soon."

"Follow me," I said, carefully cradling her head as I'd been taught to do with babies when Pansy's niece had been born- Pansy and I were only eight and we'd been made godparents. From what I understood, the little girl was living in France now, with her grandmother- the matriarch of some old pureblooded family, no doubt.

The sitting room had been the first room to get any furniture- big plushy chairs in dark, cozy colors, it was all Tonks's doing, of course. She insured in those few weeks as the house was going up that there were enough beds or at least sleeping bags for the various Order members and that this room was set up. She refused to let us have proper meetings, even though everyone else wanted them. We were closer than family towards the end of the war, yes, but it does do to keep up some air of being a real army.

"This house is gigantic," Ginny said, as she settled in the chair near the bay windows looking out onto the grounds- almost a square mile in all directions.

"Potter says he's going to fill it up with babies," I said, "you've got your work cut out for you." She laughed.

"He always did want a big family," she said, looking at her bare ring finger, "he used to talk about three girls and three boys."

"Only six? I was under the impression he wanted an even dozen," Ginny burst out laughing.

"You'd know better than I do- it's been more than a year since I last saw him," she got up and came over, standing behind me. "Don't be so stiff when you hold her," she instructed, "Relax your wrist." I did so and the baby sighed and curled into my chest.

"You've missed him, haven't you?" I asked, after a few minutes of silence while she returned to her chair.

"I can't even-" she began, and then there was the sound of the door opening and she flew out of the room and around the corner.


	19. Never Do: Hermione

A/N: Countdown to Malfoy's sexy dance: 3 chapters counting this one. I warn you now that the dance includes pirouettes :P. Anyway, this is long-er.

One of the things I thought I was never going to have to do was pacify Harry's uncle. As, for one thing, most people who hurt Harry that much I won't speak too (or, you know, end up falling in something-like-love with, but that's only Draco). But, here I was, comforting Vernon, and dealing with Dudley.

How those people managed to produce Harry I will never know. I mean, Harry isn't perfect- he has fits of idiocy and self-pity like nobody's business, he has a nobility complex the size of a horse but he's not a bad person. If I'd been raised- for lack of a better word- by these people rather than two manic dentists I would not have turned out well without some serious therapy. Harry makes a funny sound in the back of his throat whenever I suggest therapy for him.

"Will Harry be back?" Vernon asked, gulping down his- approximately- four thousandth cookie.

"Not if he can help it," I replied from where I was standing in front of the oven, rescuing Dudley's frozen pizza from whatever the worst fate that can befall a frozen pizza is. I considered telling him- again- exactly what I think of him, but didn't. He'd already heard and ignored it twice.

"And when are you people going to leave my house?" Petunia asked, deeply entrenched in her well-liquored tea.

"Whenever Draco gets here, I suppose," I replied, removing the blacked pizza from the oven and shooting it a dubious look before I flicked my wand at it and it disappeared. "Dudley, you'll have to eat something else," I said, sounding remarkably like my mother during one of my cooking attempts gone wrong. If it weren't for Harry we'd all have starved by now, really. I mean, Draco was always good at Potions, but he finds cooking demeaning, and I was excellent at Potions, and anything else I tried- except cooking.

I wished I could just take Snape to the Ministry and be done with it, but I didn't have that authorization. A citizen's arrest doesn't exist in the Wizarding World, and having been defunct for most of the past two years, I didn't have anything resembling the liberties given to the rest of the Order. So I couldn't get out of this house I hated, with these people I hated.

"Who's Draco?" Petunia asked, shrill as ever.

Now, I fought the urge to say 'my fantastically sexy lover,' most because I was trying not to give Petunia a heart attack, but also because I don't typically say things like that- even when they're very well on their way to being true. And also, I don't like to think that Malfoy has had as much influence over me that I will help him in his campaign to tell everyone he meets exactly how sexy he is.

Honestly, he's said it in exactly those words, too. Malfoy has a twisted sense of humor, even if he's nothing else particularly going for him.

"He's a good friend," I said, smiling at her, hopefully serenely. "He's going to take Snape with him and then I'll be on my way."

"Those children- are they yours?" she asked, next, which almost made me laugh out loud. It's not that I never thought about sex with Harry, but it's just that when I did think about sex with Harry it was with The-Boy-Who-Lived, not _Harry_. Sex with Harry would have just been- incestuous. Like sleeping with my cousin, or my brother, if I'd had one.

"No," I said, still restraining laughter. "No, one's my godson, though." It made me proud to say it- especially since I'd now seen the unspeakable adorableness that was James Ronald Potter. Jamie- I think Harry made it up because he couldn't bear to call someone James. But perhaps it's something Ginny calls him, I haven't spoken to her in, oh, about forever.

"They're not _his_, are they?" she said, in obvious disgust. And I had no clue who she was talking about- there is no one more obviously related to Harry than those boys. And if she were talking about Snape, well, there was something interesting to think about. Snape would probably be the one person I'd choose to raise my children after I'd choose Petunia.

"Of course they're Harry's," I replied, puzzled. But she ignored me and barreled right ahead.

"No, I mean _his_," she said, looking furtively at her steaming husband, who had collapsed into an armchair with a brandy a few minutes beforehand. I always hate how somehow people assume I'm on the same wavelength as them- Harry claims it's an aura I give off. Ron used to say it was because it was probably in a book somewhere only I'd read.

"Who is he?" I asked, pouring myself a little of the brandy. At least they had a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

"The boy's godfather," she settled on, finally, tentatively. And I was left to wonder how he thought a man dead for more than four years could have two infant sons.

"No, they're not," I said, "Harry's, through and through. His and Ginny's."


	20. War Is Over: Ginny

A/N: You have no idea how many times I tried to write this chapter- it always (including this time) came out sucking… but I was so angry with the damned thing by the end that I just finished the current version. It has a certain flow- but that's the only good thing I can say about it. Also, it seemed longer when I was writing it. AND yes, the title is a song- three imaginary cookies to anyone who can name it! CTMSD: 2 Chapters.

It is very hard to do this in the right way, to tell the words that will open up whatever it is that's between Harry and I. I think, what we have isn't that special- it's just right. We fit each other like no one else ever has, or ever could. We've both seen it all, we both know what's been and what we want to come.

There is no time to dance around each other in a war. Harry and I, we never lied to each other, there were never comic misunderstandings that spiraled off into hilarity, there was just me and Harry. That's all there ever was, really. There was one moment, in his first year, at the train station where we made eye contact and there was _nothing else_ in the world but that one moment, that one boy, those green, green eyes.

I mistook that for love- it wasn't. What I have with Harry now is quiet, peaceful and like a sedative. It's like laying in front of the fire in mid-December with a cup of tea, my favorite book and a blanket- it's warm and right and comforting. Sometimes, yes, it's more like being in the fire than being next to it- molten, fast, rough and bright. But the rest of the time there's a certain tempo to it- if it were a song it would be smooth and low, a caress.

I could go on forever about it. The way it feels when we- anything, I guess. Nothing is quite the same with him, I had boyfriends before Harry, but the simplest things- like when Dean held doors open for me- weren't the same. The feeling I could get kissing Dean and the feelings I get sitting next to Harry are the same. He's so much more.

I am going on forever about it.

"You look older," was the first thing Harry- dear, bumbling Harry- said to me. A year and a half and all I get is an observation. It was all I was expecting.

"You look like you," I said, walking over to him as fast as I could, him and my sons. "Are they alright?"

"They're fine, a little scared," Harry said, "but mostly of the Floo, I think," he looks at me and I can just tell that what he really wants is to put the boys down and hold me. Well, what I really want him to do is that, and Harry and I normally want the same things. "Jamie's been sleeping, though." I always call him James- never Jim, anything like that. But I knew that Harry would never be able to call him James, I had always known that, it would hurt him too much for words.

"They like you," I said, watching the shy Jamie cuddle close to his father's neck, while Sirius, who hardly approves of me sometimes, played with his shirt cuffs.

"I'm their father," he said, "and I love them." That's when I almost started to cry. Because there is something so unutterably beautiful about those words, that look, that man. And it's as if I can see him the way it should be, for a moment it's as if it's all really OK. As if Harry was the one holding my hand when they were born and not Bill, as if he were the first to hold them and not my father. It feels as if this is a real family and not the puzzle pieces that could make one.

"I know you do, love," I said, "If you want to give me James, we could go upstairs. Talk, maybe," he doesn't give me the grin that that statement would have elicited just a year ago, and a part of me is glad of that. A part of me, the better part, knows that he's just nineteen- he should be giving me that look, he shouldn't be holding his children. He shouldn't have to be a man just yet.

"I'd like that," is all he says, and he smoothly passes James to me, and as he does that, his hand brushes over my shoulder. And then, in that instant, the war is over.


	21. Awkard: Harry

A/N: It's nearly over! I think we're heading for either 28 or 32 chapters- and yes. This is completed. I could count. But that would be LOGICAL now, wouldn't it? And God knows I'm pretty much everything but that. Girl's gotta have standards, after all.

"You know, they look nothing like me," Ginny said, curled up on one of the grey armchairs in the master suite's sitting room.

"I think they look a little like Ron," I said, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that we were avoiding the topic. And when I'll admit to skirting the issue- admit to it, mind, not just do it- it's very awkwardly obvious. "It's their eyes, I think."

"Your eyes," she argued, "green, I mean."

"The shape though," I said, after a moment. "The shape of their eyes is a lot like Ron's."

"They have Mum's hands," she said. And it struck me again how little I knew of my sons- I couldn't even summon up a picture of their hands, let alone compare them to Molly's work-worn ones. "They have her nails. I bet they'll chew them, too."

"Why?"

"We all do, it's near as we ever got to a family tradition. I was worst by far until Mum taught me the enchantments to make them taste bad. Fred was probably next to worst," here she bit her lip and I moved closer to her on the couch. If I listed my regrets- and I'd be going on for days, if I did- that would be one of the biggest. Her family was falling down all around her, and I was so far away. I was there when Ron died, of course, but I was nearly as heartbroken as she was. Then when Percy died, I was leaving, I only had a day. A bloody fucking day to try to do whatever it is I could.

And what I could do was nothing.

"You should talk to Molly," I said, after a minute. "If I've brought you out we should take her home, they'll insist."

"I've missed her so much," she says, "but I'm glad she was safe." She doesn't say it, but I hear her thanks in that.

"She's family," I said. "I take care of family."

"And me?"

"More than family," I said, after a moment, and it felt like I was sixteen again, asking her out for the first time. My stomach was doing acrobatics, my heart was just a little higher than my throat and it was all very terrifying. "Like a, like a part of me."

And that was it, the catalyst. I can't tell you how it happened, but we were both in tears and we were holding each other and it was all the way things are supposed to be.

"We don't do this," she said, more to herself than to me. "We're the strong ones."

"Not always," I said, into her hair, "we don't always have to be. Not anymore."

"Love you," she told me, "like nothing else."

"I know," she was shaking, breaking, falling and it was like freedom. "I know what that feels like." And she laughed at me.

"Not quite, Harry," she said, pulling back, running a hand along my cheek- the contrast of her pale, long fingers to my dark stubble so clear in the mirror across from us. "I don't think you'll ever quite know."

"Why not?" I pulled the hand to my mouth, kissed each of her fingers. Once we had started- it was something crazy, something I don't understand and don't want to. Something that doesn't need to be understood to be had.

"Because I've been this way since before forever," she murmured, moving close to my ear. "I saw you and it was just there."

"What was there?"

"Everything."


	22. Sexcapades: Draco

A/N: I don't think anyone, once they have started using the word 'sexcapades' is physically capable of stopping. Honest. That's why this chapter is longer than the recent ones. Anyway, I believe next chappie is the sexy dance. However, there shall be no grievous injury to the author if she's just nuts 'cause she's wearing too many bangles, which work kind of like crack does on normal people on her.

I always thought I would be a great father but without any sort of proof. Children think I'm funny, I'm immensely loyal to my own people and I was raised to be obsessed with carrying on a bloodline.

This is why it was a shock to discover I'm terrible at this.

The first little while was all right, Ginny had gotten her calm and changed while I was busy with Pansy. But then she and Potter disappeared (and from the sounds on the ceiling, seemed otherwise occupied) and I was alone with a baby. And that baby didn't feel like my daughter. She felt like one of the billions of "cousins" I'd been introduced too- these, I know now, were everything from illegitimate siblings (three of them, all my father's, two now dead) to people who were of no relation to me at all. And this felt no different, except this child was so like me. I could see Pansy in her, a little, and certainly my mother- but mostly myself.

And I think this is why Hermione delights in telling me I'm a self-absorbed poof. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop, but at least it means I've got some insight into my own incipient metro-sexuality.

But, that's beside the point. I was, at that moment, losing my mind. I had a wailing baby that I didn't know what to do with and no clue where Hermione was. I thought Potter was probably supposed to convey some sort of message, but he can't honestly be expected to have the presence of mind to tell me these things- not right now, anyway.

But, that didn't stop me from, after an hour of trying to find something serviceable to feed the baby (I have some experience with this at least, there was one dreadful week in the war when I was being healed and Tonks simply deposited her son at my doorstep, smiled, and left). I found the milk substitute Ginny had been talking about and fed Sabin, so she calmed down, at least a little. Then I started to fidget- I had no clue what to with the baby, and I was worried about Hermione. So, I went upstairs. Ginny was a bit of alright, and I'd seen the terrible sight of Potter naked a few times before.

It's horrific because it's Potter, but I have to say (objectively and in the straightest way possible) the bloke's fit. And I'll never admit to that again, besides, I'm twelve times better looking. He's just got the rugged scarred and monstrously famous thing going for him.

I did, however, have the decency to knock, though I think the extremely melodramatic wailing of the baby alerted them to my presence, but you never know what Potter will choose not to notice. The door was answered by Ginny, looking like the paintings of Aphrodite that my mother used to have around her mirror- the white sheet substituting for the crests of waves. Her hair was loose (it had been in a tight bun that reminded me more of McGonagall than anything else before) and I could actually see why someone would have sex with Ginny Weasley. I mean, from looking at her on a day-to-day basis you can understand some cuddling and a white wedding, but after you've seen her thoroughly ravished (not that Potter has the ability to thoroughly ravish, perhaps he just pleased) you can understand why Harry is the luckiest man in the world, except, of course, me. I've got Hermione.

"Draco," she said, grinning sleepily, "and Sabin, hey sweetheart."

"I take it you and Potter have sorted things out?" I said, I had anticipated at least a week of brooding and screaming before anyone got any.

"Mm-hmm," she said, and then contorted her face into some expression of glee that I am physically incapable of understanding. Happily Ever After does not suit me, but she and Potter appear to be pushing right ahead. Bloody Gryffindors. "Harry's just um-"

"Ginny, you have a really good throw, I don't think they're even in the bedroom," Potter screamed from the back of the room. I felt my first twinge of fatherly protectiveness as I realized that my only child was being subjected to the mental image of a pants-less Potter.

"I think they went to the left, Harry," Ginny called back, "do you have some stupidly complicated plan or can I just tell him what to do?"

"Just tell him where to go and then come back to bed," Harry said, whining. Good God, Molly Weasley was having a seizure somewhere right then- her only daughter doing that and not even hiding it. I could just hear her.

"Hermione's with Harry's aunt and uncle," Ginny said, "go and arrest Snape. Try to do horrid things to him," she then held out her hand for the baby and I gave her a scandalized look.

"Are you about to make my daughter witness your sexcapades?"

"No, I'll feed her and put her in with the boys before I get to the sexcapades," Ginny said, blushing and smirking at the same time. I do like the girl.

"I didn't need to know that," I said, handing the squalling Sabin to Ginny with something a lot like relief- this was going to take some getting used to.

"But I wanted to tell you," she said, and then closed the door in my face.


	23. Gallantly: Hermione

I don't think I had ever been more relieved to see Draco in my life- and I'm very frequently relieved to see him. He tends to spend a lot of his time being almost dead.

"Hey, baby," he drawled from the door, "I'm here to gallantly rescue you."

"I needed someone to gallantly rescue me an hour ago," I said, and raised my glass of brandy at him. "I've now sunk to drinking."

"Alone? That's a bad thing, doll."

"Are we in a gangster movie? Did I miss something?" I asked, giggling. Maybe I'd had about fourteen glasses too many. I was only tipsy though- besides, I knew from experience that Malfoy's sobering-up spells were the best.

"You've been crying," he said, and then quickly crossed the kitchen and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm going to kill Potter for this, he should never have left you here on your own."

"No," I said, sliding my own arms around his neck and letting him burrow into my shoulder. "It's fine, I'm good now. I was just a little shaken."

"I told him you shouldn't have come at all, you aren't ready for this," he murmured. "And I should have stayed with you sent, oh, I don't know, anyone but me into the house."

"You're way more distressed over this than I am," I said, wondering if it was all right now to press a kiss to his hair. I loved his hair, even if I did know just exactly how much time it took to get it that soft. "You're sweet."

"I am not," he said, apparently having gotten over his agony enough to start kissing my collarbone. "I'm very, very, very evil. And insensitive and a lot of other bad qualities," he then took a moment to move up to my jaw. "But, I'm also very, very good in bed. It just sort of comes with the whole sexy bastard turned good package."

"Yes, bastard," I said, and pushed him away. "Lovely, lovely bastard."

"I'm irresistible to women!" he crowed. And then did a sort of impromptu jig that I didn't really need to see- but I'm as good as in love with the poof. This was poor Petunia's (the fact that I'm saying that is demonstrative of the pure horror of the situation) first impression of Draco.

"He's, um, very inbred," I said after a moment. "Possibly insane." Petunia just stared as Draco did something that looked very much like a pirouette to me. "Malfoy! Look, I know your poor, oversexed neurons can't take much, but don't you think this is taking it a little too far?"

"Well, no, not really. Your neck tastes like heaven."

"Oh?" I asked, hardly restraining myself from giggling. It would not do to giggle at his antics- then he gets to do them again. Draco Malfoy may play the cool, calm and collected snob, but on the inside, he's a crazy teenaged boy who has mood swings that even I can't compete with. "Aren't you supposed to be rescuing me?"

"Gallantly, yes," he agreed. "Where'd you put him, then?"

"Under the stairs," I said, smiling. "Fitting, don't you think?"

"There's a reason I adore you," he said, then kissed me on the cheek. "Fix up whatever you need to here, and then, for God's sake, come home so I can ravish you."

"You know, you're very forward," I said, and then watched Petunia ogling out of the corner of my eye and pulled him in for a proper kiss. "I'm just not that kind of girl."

"I am Draco Malfoy, everyone is that kind of girl when I'm in the room," he said, "including the men."

"Prat!"

"Why, yes."

"You'll tell me everything when you get home?"

"If we can hear anything over the moaning and groaning."

And, it was the stupidest time I could have picked to fall in love with him.


	24. I Am: Tonks

Even though he's related to me on Mum's side, Draco isn't entirely evil. He'd debate that, of course. Because he's Draco and that's just sort of what he does. It's how he deals with life- he argues with it.

So, when he and the man he was supposed to be arresting started screaming at each other from across the entrance hallway to the Ministry, it was not a shocking event for me. Also, I have a two year old. Nothing scares me anymore- plus, he's a two-year-old werewolf. It's like living in a really cute form of hell.

"She is worth forty of you so don't you dare tell me I am below myself, you twisted, perverted bastard!" Draco was screaming, and he chose this moment to artfully snap Severus' wand. The boy's got flair.

"You do offence to the name of your mother!"

"My mother," Draco spat, bobbing Snape up and down- possibly without meaning too- as he gestured, "was a whore. I do Hermione a disservice by daring to mix my mother's blood with hers."

"Drake?" I said, tentatively. I enjoy seeing Severus Snape tortured as much as the next Order member- provided that member isn't my psychotically guilt-ridden husband, but maybe this was a slightly too public place. There were, after all, a few tour groups scheduled to go through. And had he not known about the, oh, forty or so back entrances? "You're telling 'your mom' jokes."

"Well, yes, but…" Here he was about to say 'he started it', but I glared at him. I am mother, I am metamorphagus, I can do anything. I can turn into anyone I want to yell at him and he knows that. "I could just murder him."

"That would be highly inappropriate, though," Remus commented, strolling in. "Draco, Severus, darling." He nodded at the two men, and kissed me on the cheek. "Are you almost done? Varian and I are absolutely starving." The chubby, blonde two year old in his arms- my son- giggled at the sound of his name.

"You have the right to protest any and all charges against you," I sighed, looking at Severus as I rattled off the warnings that I don't think is physically possible to forget after the Academy. "You also have the right to protest the center of detention chosen for you. You will, in due time, have a trial. The Ministry has repossessed all of your goods and monetary possessions at this time. In the event that you are proven innocent it will be returned to you. Oh, and your jury? Full Wizengamot, jury of Order members." I grinned and nodded at Malfoy, he let his professor down. He will fry; no one hurts Harry and gets away with it.

"Another word against her," Draco snarled, "and I'll see to it that the entire wizarding world lobbies for me to be your executioner," he winked at me, before turning to Varian. "How's my favorite baby cousin? You know, I've got someone you should meet."

"I'll come see her sometime," Remus says, "bring some civilization into that house," and he got that look in his eyes that just screams depression. "Bit like old times."

"Harry will love that," Draco said, "Tonks, could you get him out of my sight before my better instincts overtake me?"

"Your better instincts being?" Remus asked, half laughing already as I took Severus- writhing and screaming- out of the room.

"My better instincts are to kill him. The other ones want to put him in a room with Ginny Weasley."

"No one deserves that fate," Remus said, half laughing at him, then paused to consider it. "Except him. It's been good to see you, Draco. Will you tell Harry and Ginny I'll be glad to never receive another tortured missive from either of them again?" Draco looked at him.

"Not when they're in the same room I won't. I plan to be far, far away when Harry realizes just exactly how many of us have been seeing Ginny these past couple years."

"Bastard! Not worth of your mother's name!" Severus screamed, just as I left hearing range. I direction one last, pleading look at Remus, and rounded the corner.


	25. Guide: Harry

A/N: I wrote this at the height of my DM/HP obsession, so any slashy-esque moments in here can be blamed on that if you so desire.

"The dining room- we only go in here when the entire Order's in, or sometimes Malfoy insists we eat in here," I explained, passing by the darkened room, Ginny holding my hand. We had left the babies in the suite, after using a handy spell that makes it so we can hear them anywhere in the house.

"It's dark in there," she commented, then turned to look in. I muttered the incantation to turn the lights on. The table and floors were dark wood- the walls were black as well, with a few brightly colored patches here and there. "It's bizarre in there.'

"I know, it was Hermione's room, we thought she needed something to keep her busy," I sighed. Hermione had mostly spent a year in crying jags, desperate and depressed. But when she wasn't doing that, she was positively manic (Malfoy's words, not mine). We had given her the room to do, and she'd focused on it- and only it- for three weeks about ten months ago. "Malfoy won't let me redecorate."

"Why on earth not?" Ginny asked, moving out of the room and turning down the next corridor. "Does this house end, Harry?"

"Eventually," I said, laughing. "There've been weeks we've had over forty people staying here- Malfoy and I once got stuck on the bloody balcony," I smiled at the memory. It had been a few days after the battle in which he'd declared his loyalties- without any sort of approval. And we'd been suitably furious with each other. Tonks had, in an unusually serene way, simply sent us, two sleeping bags and two bottle of firewhisky outside. We woke up friends and never asked why.

He's not Ron, and I know that. I don't want to replace Ron, and I don't think if I did I would fill that space with Draco. He fills a spot that didn't have anyone back at school, the one who can tell me I'm wrong and an idiot without worrying about breaking my heart.

Oh, I'm sure he's broken hearts in his time and cared. Which is why the thought of him and Hermione together doesn't make me want to strangle him. He's not afraid of her, not afraid to break her more, but I am. He knew, when it had never occurred to the rest of us, that what she needed was pain. What she had was suffering. He made her hurt just enough to break her, and then he picked up all the pieces. "Do Malfoy and Hermione share a room?" Ginny asked, spinning through the kitchen, laying a lazy hand on the worn table from Hogwarts that we used.

"They've been together less than a day," I said, laughing. "Give it a week or so."

"A day?" Ginny said, her eyes wide. "Harry, um, darling, you don't get that kind of devotion from a day."

Yeah, she can read him like a book. About Hermione at least, for her, he wears his feelings on his sleeve. Or in his eyes- whichever sounds straighter.

"Well, no," I agreed, "they've been teetering for ages. I was getting to the insane matchmaking plans stage."

"Things have changed, haven't they?" She said, turning to me. We were in the mudroom behind the kitchen- it's all in browns, filled with coats and boots and umbrellas and the paraphernalia of running the Order. "I'll never be used to this." She bit her lip, Ginny shows it when she's nervous, if you know where to look. I know where too look.

"Not everything changes," I said, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind. She relaxed back into me. She rested her head on my shoulder, her hair tickling my bare chest.

"You changed," she said, I nodded, and I knew she could feel it.

"We didn't."

"Will, though."

"Yes."

And with that, she's off, back to being bubbly and free and herself. I know this girl- I know that woman. I know all her darkness, all her fears. I know she's afraid of change, of the difference and I know that I am too. But this is family- family is forever.


	26. Warmth: Draco

A/N: Thank you so much to reviewer who told me I copied this out twice! I'm sorry about that- anyway, it's normal now!

I love the Ministry, honestly. It's all just fabulous to be stuck doing paperwork for two and half hours when all I want to do is go home. Nowhere I'd rather be, honestly. Being glared at by a bunch of Aurors who backed out of their duty for two years and didn't even bother to try while the rest of us were laying out lives out.

It makes me wonder why we bothered at all some days. I did not abandon everything I had ever known or loved just to be glared at by some idiot who can only see my name. I had that before and I fought to get away from it.

"I am leaving now," I said, before he put another sheaf down on the desk - I didn't know his name, only vaguely recognized him from the aftermath of a battle. I didn't even remember which. "I have put down every possibly applicable piece of information and I am now leaving." I smiled and stood up.

"You can't do that, sir," he said, looking at me strangely. I sighed, I hated it when they did this. Most people have taken to thinking of me as a hero- but some are still convinced that at any second I'll burst out into demonic laughter and admit that I've been working for the Dark Lord all along.

"Am I under arrest?" I asked impatiently.

"No, sir."

"Then there is absolutely nothing stopping me from going home to my daughter and my girlfriend," I said. And it felt like my stomach was on fire to refer to Hermione as that, like my blood was warmer than usual.

"Well, no, but sir-"

"Goodbye," I said, and walked out of the room and, without stopping, onto the street and I Apparated back home.

It's still strange to call this place home- it's so different from the Manor, with all its white and black decoration. The lushness of the red brick of the house and the green of the garden are in such stark contrast to every memory of my childhood that I can barely believe them to be part of the same world. Mind you, this isn't nirvana, the whole house lived in virtual chaos and at least three people got punched in it every week. But it's warm- that's the only reason I'm still here. If you can't understand it in those two words, you can't understand it at all.

Hermione and I met at the door- she was cradling a cup of tea in her hands and I could see Harry and Ginny cuddled behind her on the couch- their sons in their arms, the one Ginny was holding fussing a little. Sabin was lying, asleep, on a blanket on the floor. It became very clear how many bassinets we'd need to own as I hurried over to pick my daughter up.

My daughter.

It's a strange concept; my daughter. Sabin Malfoy- it tastes strange on my tongue, sweet, almost. Hermione had settled on the stairs by the time I get back, she was dressed in a brown sweatshirt and a long skirt- she looked soft, relaxed, and warm. Like the house. Like this life.

"I was holding her before," Hermione said, moving closer to my arm and sliding hers through it. "I'm almost sure she hates me."

"Well, she'll probably hate me, too, given enough time," I said, grinning. It's easy between us, it shouldn't be but it is. I'm fooling myself- this isn't easy. This was the first flush, everything was going right. Everything we ever do together will be war- whether it's on each other or on absolutely everything else. But we've got determination, strength, a past and commitment. She will not watch me die; I will not watch her fall. We've got things we don't need- like our history, in all its scarred fragility. All it's battles, everything we remember about each other is either excruciatingly painful or I come out looking incredibly bad. Oh, there's the odd glimpse in the past few months of the stuff that's going to keep us going. There's whatever weird combination made me fall in love with her. But most of it- the base of it- that's the part we're going to try to forget, that's the part that's going to eat away at us.

But she laid her hand down on my knee, smiled; touched my daughter's hair and I could remember that it's not always so bad.


	27. Blush: Hermione

"They're sickening," Malfoy muttered, looking over at Harry and Ginny who were trying to make dinner. I say trying because, currently, he had her backed up against the counter and they were doing things that made me blush. I really hoped that if it went any further they'd give up on lasagna and go upstairs to carry on. They'd already taken twenty minutes just to get the ingredients out.

"They're sweet," I argued, "you're just jealous because you can't haul me up over your shoulder and have your way with me." And yes, I was lucky that I was already blushing. He grinned and shifted the baby in his arms so he could move a little closer to me from our perch on the scratched wooden table.

"If I put the baby down," he said raising an eyebrow at me.

"Don't just call her the baby," I said, "she has a beautiful name. Sabin," I rested a hand on the little girl's cheek- just as smooth as his, as pale as his. I knew he didn't get how to do this, that it would take months to set the balance between being the father he had to be, the lover he wanted to be and the man he was. But I knew I would be here, helping. I might be the only one, though. Harry and Ginny would have a honeymoon, and then they'd fall to pieces again. Because they weren't ready for this, I didn't think. We were all too young.

"It's a bad name," he said, "I might call her Tara, it sounds better." He doesn't say it, but he means that it sounds less like a Malfoy's name. I understood that, too. I think if he'd had a say in the matter- and in time, I thought he'd wish he had. Not for Pansy, though, but for Sabin. Because I knew, absolutely knew, that he would love her eventually. Because even though he tried to hide it beneath his, well, everything about him he was a good person.

"No," I said, "keep it. Only thing her mother will ever give her, after all." He barely even nodded, half biting his lip. So he regretted it already. I wondered, briefly, if he'd thought about the child being mine. And all the difference that would make. I knew he probably hadn't- we both knew I wasn't ready to have something as precious as a child of my own, I might never be ready.

"You two," Ginny said, she and Harry having pulled apart- and by apart I mean all of four inches, at the best, "are far too morose." She grinned at us, and she looked about twelve. All teeth and freckles, Harry couldn't resist leaning down to kiss her on the cheek before she spun in his arms to look at us. I didn't think he'd be letting go of her for some time yet.

"Well, you see," Malfoy said, and I could already feel the bite in his voice. I put a hand on his knee, "it's been a long day." Harry nodded at him- he knew it wasn't the ending he had planned either. Ginny remained hopelessly oblivious, she hadn't spent enough time with him to know all his ticks. Neither had I, really. I had known him longer, but less than the people who fought the war with him. I can't describe how much I wish I'd been part of every battle of that war. How much I wish I could have healed Harry- even though I know I'm not the one who could have done that.

"For all of us," I agreed, "I'm going to go to bed, actually." Harry raised an eyebrow at me, and then nodded. I slid my arm around Draco's waist- I couldn't take his hand because of Sabin- and brought him upstairs with me.

Harry had the nerve to clap.

It'll be a race in the morning to see who gets to kill him.


	28. Epilogue: James

A/N: This is the last chapter of this fic, so I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who reviewed. Seeing as this IS the last chapter I figured I'd better dedicate it to SOMEONE (just to offend certain tall people who don't deserve to be in warm places and don't get ANYTHING dedicated to them santanical grin ) So- this is for Dani, who is the bestestest torture victim in the world and who I will continue torturing and for Marcy who told me I looked like I'd been hit on the head with a pan. ANd also possbly Kaik 'cause I suspect she'd poke me if she didn't get mentioned. So. bybies for now and thanks for reviewing! And also, according to certain twitchildren who will remain unnamend "so long and thanks for all the fish." 

Being Harry Potter's son is the least fun thing in the world. Now, it's not because of Dad- honest. Yeah, he's insane, sure. Yes, he and therefore all my siblings and I are unspeakably famous.

But that's not the part that's the least fun thing in the world.

That part when lurid novels describing my conception in purple prose are written and then found in my mother's closet. Then, of course, stupid Abby has to tell Dad about it- then Mum and Dad don't talk to each other, or really Sirius or I either. So, as always when they're fighting- Dad calls in the cavalry.

Uncle Draco, Auntie Hermione and Sabin come swooping in, ostensibly to 'save the day'. I've been around my parents for seventeen years now- the only thing that 'saves the day' is when one of them does something sickeningly romantic and then Uncle Draco rescues all of us for a week in France. Then he makes not-so-subtle jokes about make-up sex and it's actually a relief to get back to my semi-sane parents.

But, this time, it wasn't ending. Dad claimed that bringing 'that thing' into the house was giving all of us- my parents are crazy and have six kids with another potentially on the way- the wrong ideas about our life. Mum argued back- like a reasonable person- that it wasn't exactly as if she was reading it to us as a bedtime story (that was Sirius- and he was changing the names because most of it made him wretch). What's Draco's solution? Lawsuit.

Hermione's? Why, we should all write our own novel of course! For the children, you understand.

If this came from anyone else, Mum would have slapped them, Dad would have gone storming out of the room to go flying and Draco would have burst out laughing. But, Draco will give Hermione anything she asks for- always has, always will.

It makes most girls swoon. Especially my sisters, sadly.

Dad of course, feels exactly the same way about Auntie Hermione most days- if it's not too crazed, he'll do it for her.

So, they got to writing. By the end of the first week, there was a tearful reunion and Hermione and Draco declared that their task was accomplished and left their offerings before heading back home with promises to be back for my and Sirius' birthday.

They finished their book; all six of us spent a week of our vacation in Barcelona with the Malfoys and that was supposed to be the end of it. Honestly, the bloody end. But no, Hermione decides that we all have to know the truth. Which ends in the most disturbed version of story time in history.

She rounded all seven of us up one day when we were home for Christmas and announced that we were going to spend time together listening to a story we'd just hate.

At least she's honest.

Eventually Mum got sucked into it too- someone needed to mind the babies, since Hermione's never been any good with any of us. Then Draco realized that concentrated time spent together with Sirius and Sabin would probably end in either fisticuffs or sex (that's exactly how he put it when he came storming in after lunch and places himself firmly between them). This left Dad alone to pace the house- so he eventually came up. Which is why, at the end of the 'story' fisticuffs resulted anyway. Well, at least all four of them were rolling around on the ground in tears.

"You thought about sex with my husband?"

"It's the scar, I'm telling you!"

"I can too ravish! Ginny, tell him I ravish all the time!"

"Yes, dear. Draco, he ravishes frequently, With gusto."

"Mother!" Sirius interrupted at this point, "my virgin ears!"

"Virgin?" I spat out, laughing. Sabin had cut that step and was trying to tickle him to death.

"Daddy, did you really kick down a door?" That was Abby adjusting her glasses and goggling at Dad.

"He had help," Hermione said, grinning. Then she waved her wand hand in the air. Dad sulked.

"Poor baby," Mum said, crawling over and into Dad's lap. My parents are disgusting. Hermione sat up, resting a hand on her stomach and smilng at Draco, he grinned and put his on top of hers and mouthed something at her. Then Sirius and Sabin started in on each other. Since there were four innocent children in the room I did the only thing I possibly could to stop them all.

"So, Dad," perfectly innocent start, of course. "The whole tying up thing in the book…?"

And then I was viciously attacked- with pillows- by my very own father.


End file.
